religion is banned. there is no rule of law, and perceived political infractions are met with harsh punishment, punishment, i should add, that is often needed out to the three generations of a person's family , and political offenders knows that when he goes to present his parents and his children will probably go with him. there are probably about 200,000 north koreans today in the gulag, and more than a million, perhaps as high as 2 million have already died there. the reason we know all of this and much, much more is thanks to the testimonies of north koreans to have escaped. these are the people i write about in my book. this knowledge comes to us despite the best efforts of the family regime to keep it secret. for more than 50 years, ever since the end of the korean war, north korea has been sealed off from the world's eyes. the family regime has pursued an isolationist policy and it maintains an iron grip on information, access to which is very strictly controlled. to give just one example, every r